Turtles in School
by zebralily999
Summary: Raphael, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Donatello attend high school at high risk and discover some startling secrets. Based on the 2012 series. Hope you like it!
1. Chapter 1: The Idea

**Chapter 1**

It was just another day in the lair. Donatello looked around at his brothers while he pretended to have his attention focused on his makeshift laptop. Leonardo was watching his favorite saturday morning cartoon rerun with the volume up much too loud. Raphael was yelling at him to turn it down because it was loud enough for the people on the streets above them to hear it. Leonardo was shouting back at his brother, in an even louder volume than the television. Donatello knew his brothers well. In another thirty seconds to a minute they'd be rolling around on the ground, punching until they couldn't even lift their fists anymore. There wasn't a way for Donatello to stop his stubborn brothers once they were in a row. Just let them fight it out, he'd told himself hundreds of times when this exact thing had happened.

Donatello looked at his other brother, Michelangelo, who was reading a cheesey comic book in a dirty bean bag chair a few yards away. Donatello could see his brother's lips move as he read. Michelangelo noticed his brother was watching him and looked up at him, then at his squabling brothers, and back at Donatello. He shrugged and went back to reading. Donatello shifted his gaze back to Leonardo and Raphael. Leonardo was pinning Raphael to the floor triumphantly.

"Give up yet?" he asked jauntily.

"Leonardo, you know me too well to ask that," answered Raphael stubbornly, flipping Leonardo under him in the process.

Donatello had had it. His brothers, excluding Michelangelo, were always trying to see who was the best brawler. And now that the Shredder knew about them, they were nervous, and that made the fights even longer and more brutal. They'd fight for hours over an argument about who had actually eaten Michelangelo's last slice of stuffed-crust, extra pepperoni pizza. Or about the volume of the television, like the one happening right then.

"You know what, I've been thinking," said Donatello to Leonardo and Raphael.

"Oh, wow, Donnie, that's different," said Raphael sarcastically and wheezily from Leonardo's choke hold.

"What have you been thinking about?" asked Michelangelo loudly, taking his eyes off his comic book,"Because I've been thinking too. For dinner tonight, should we have pepperoni and sausage pizza or just pepperoni?"

"No, seriously guys. I've been thinking about this for weeks," announced Donatello,"Why don't we go to high school?"

Leonardo and Raphael stopped brawling instantly. They froze for a moment, in the position of Raphael trying to break free of Leonardo's tight hold, just looking at Donatello stupidly, and then dashed over to him and his laptop. Michelangelo jumped out of his bean bag chair, threw his comic on the floor, and ran over to the group too.

"Because we're mutants, Donatello. I thought you were smarter than this," pointed out Raphael nonchalantly.

"Plus, the Krang could find us there, or Shredder, or some other enemy of ours," added Leonardo,"We'd not only be putting us at risk, but also the people in the school."

"But, guys. I've worked around the enemy problem," said Donatello. He pulled four small chips out from under his laptop and showed them to his brothers. "These are what I like to call T-chips, and-"

"Hey, why can't I name it?," whined Michelangelo.

"Because I had the idea for them and I put weeks of work into them," answered Donatello, rolling his eyes,"Anyways, these chips can hide us from our enemies. I made them out of some Krang technology, but they'd been extremely difficult for them or anyone else to track. They're designeds so whenever anyone looks at us while we're wearing these, we'll just appear as four regular humans to them."

"Woah!" Leonardo awed, picking up a chip and examining it,"You've just topped yourself again!"

"But there's just one hitch," Donatello said nervously,"They have a really small power containment unit, so they don't work for long. We can only use them if we're walking to and from school. No using them inside buildings or at night either, because they're strictly solar powered. But our enemies still won't find us because there's no reason for any of them to sneak into a high school."

Leonardo and Raphael groaned in unison. Leonardo gave the chip he was holding back to Donatello. "Hey, can I try it?" pleaded Michelangelo.

"Yeah, okay," said Donatello. He was glad that somebody was still excited about his new invention. He handed the chip to his brother, saying," They have a couple minutes charge right now, but we'd have to leave them somewhere safe yet sun-exposed in the city during the daytime to charge them again. "

"Even if we won't get spotted by enemies on our way to and from school," said Raphael,"Why would we even need to go there? We've learned everything we need too from Splinter."

"Not really," said Donatello as he helped hook on Michelangelo's chip,"We've only learned fighting techniques and strategy from him. He can't teach us math, or English, or science, or health, or..."

"Okay, I get it, Donnie," interrupted Leonardo,"But why would we even need to know those things. I'm the boss and team leader so I say we don't go."

"Well, I'm the boss of the boss and I say you _will _go," said a voice from behind the turtles. They turned around in surprsie and saw Splinter standing in the threshold of the room. "Learning school subjects can help you very much in your fighting."

"Oh, yeah," spoke up Raphael,"like knowing the capital of Russia will help us defeat Shredder."

Splinter chuckled. "_Some_ of the subjects can help you right now. Yet, schooling will help you farther along in your life, when Shredder, the Krang, and your other enemies are nothing but distant memories."

"Splinter, are you saying you think we will defeat them?" asked Donatello.

"I don't think you will. I _know _you will," replied Splinter proudly,"You start school on Monday. I suggest you start preparing."

"For a lot of staring," mumbled Leonardo.

"Finished!" exclaimed Donatello. His brothers and Splinter looked at the chip now set up on Michelangelo's belt. It had lots of wiring winding all over his body.

"Gee, that's going to take a while to put on each day," grumbled Raphael.

Donatello pressed the "on" button on the T-chip. It zapped and zipped and shot sparks. Suddenly, from the feet moving upwards, Michelangelo started changing. His three-toed green feet changed into blue and white Nike sneakers. The other turtles watched in awe and fear as the Michelangelo they knew disappeared and was replaced with a red-headed, freckled, short kid.

"That is creepy," said Raphael, wide-eyed and staring. Leonardo stood speechless, just gaping at his brother's new look and Donatello showing it off like a gameshow host showing off a contestant's prize.

"Tada!" said Donatello happily. He noticed his brothers' scarred faces and added,"Michelangelo didn't really change. A super-advanced holograph has just been placed over him." He pressed the chip's off button and, within seconds, Michelangelo was back to normal. "We won't get spotted by our enemies but we'll just need to endure the teasing and staring at school."

"Just remember," said Splinter," If things get rough, only use your ninjistsu if you have been extremely threatened at school, not because someone calls you weird."


	2. Chapter 2: Welcome to Challenger High

With Monday only three days away, the turtles rushed to be prepared for it. They all knew how much people were going to point and stare and avoid them in the halls, but Donatello, determined to earn a better education for himself and his brothers, encouraged Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo not to run away and hide until Monday passed. Michelangelo had already tried that, and, after hours of searching for him, Leonardo discovered him hiding in a sewer tunnel with a half-eaten box of ham and pineapple pizza.

Donatello worked out the small kinks in his T-chips. Once sure they were as perfect as perfect, he ventured out at night alone and set them in a little used alleyway where they could start charging the next morning, Saturday morning. Splinter sewed his pupils four flimsy and fragile backpacks, each one with a letter sewn onto the top: M for Michelangelo, R for Raphael, L for Leonardo, and D for Donatello, so the identical packs wouldn't be mixed and switched between the brothers.

Slightly scarred and a lot more worried, on Sunday morning the turtles snuck into the city. They found a rusty, dusty pay phone and called a nearby high school (Donatello had visited the school website and found their phone number). The brothers couldn't risk calling the school on their T-phones, because the call could be easily tracked to the sewers, and it was risky for anyone but the brothers, Splinter, and April to know where the lair was.

Raphael, faking a gruff adult voice, told the school on the phone that his four "kids" would be attending the school at the beginning of the week, and that they didn't have student files yet because they had been homeschooled. The school secretary at the other end told Raphael that it would be "fine and dandy" and that she'd handle all the new student problems. After the phone conversation ended, the brothers dashed back to their home, Donatello grabbing his fully charged T-chips from the alley on the way.

Monday came quicker than anyone had expected. Michelangelo had refused to get up and get ready, so Raphael and Leonardo had to tug his fingers off the doorway of his room as he held on stubbornly. Donatello watched them, amused, as he made their lunches. He stuffed pizza slices into four paper bags because they hadn't had the money to pay for school lunch.

As they slipped their backpacks on simultaneously, Splinter walked over and said goodbye to each one of his pupils individually. He also had to help force Michelangelo out the turnpikes that were the entrance to the lair. As they walked down the tunnels, the brothers hooked on their T-chips, ready to turn them on. They found a manhole to slip through and continued their trek towards Challenger High School on the empty street.

Leonardo turned on his chip first. With wide eyes his brothers watched him morph into a tall boy with brown hair dyed slightly blue. He was pale and wore a navy blue sweater that almost reached his knees. He had extremely bright blue eyes, that were the shade of ocean waves hitting a beach. Donatello went next and became a boy much taller than Leonardo, with curly black hair and a purple baseball cap. He was wearing thick glasses over his strangely light purple eyes, and had violet braces. His brothers laughed and pointed at his new look, causing Donatello to go red in his face. Michelangelo became the same red-headed short kid with freckles to spare. Only this time his siblings noticed large, curios orange eyes. "Still creepy,"muttered Raphael as he pressed his T-chip on. He turned into an average-height teen with straight red hair, almost blood-red. It was much different from Michelangelo's more orange-ish pigment. Raphael had a large Nike shirt on that said "Just do it" and black faded jeans. "Ha ha, losers!" he bragged,"I got the best look!"

"Here we are," said Donatello needlessly when the brothers had made it to school. Before they entered, they ran behind a bush and took off their T-chips, tucking them safely in their packs. There was pointing and yelling and laughing and call outs and sharp intakes of surprise from students as the turtles walked up the steps and into Challenger High School.

They had trouble finding the office. Donatello had to pull a map of the school out from his backpack that he had printed from the Internet. The brothers had plenty of room to argue and fight about which way to go, because every hall they entered emptied even before Michelangelo could introduce himself to a new schoolmate.

Finally, they found the office, tucked away in the corner of the school, near a different entrance than the one the turtles had used. The map hadn't been much help. Raphael had ripped it while fighting over who got to hold it with Donatello.

A small bell dinged softly as Leonardo opened the office door. A portly woman dressed in a green old woman dress and a pink cardigan waddled into the room from another doorway connected to the office. When she saw the four turtles, Donatello knew she was going to scream, and probably faint. There had been a group of girls in the hallway that had thrown their pink and purple patterned backpacks at Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo, and Raphael, and ran away, screaming at the top of their lungs, so Donatello knew what to expect.

"Hi," he said hopefully.

The woman took a long time to answer. "Hi," she said finally,"You must be the four kids I'd gotten a phone call from your father about. I'm Miss Ross."

Raphael cleared his throat and looked at his feet, afraid to talk for fear of Miss Ross recognizing his voice as the one she'd spoken on the phone with.

"Here are your books for your classes, your schedules, and some student manuals," said Miss Ross politely yet nervously,"Your lockers are numbers 60, 61,62,and 63, down this hall. I'd show you but I'm,um,busy. Class starts in five minutes." She wrote down the combination for the brothers' lockers on a slip of paper and handed it to them. She didn't return a wave goodbye from Michelangelo when the brothers left the office.

"How nice of them to give us lockers close together," said Leonardo as they walked towards them.

"Yeah, how nice," grumbled Raphael when they found their lockers. Theirs and the ones around them were all beaten and broken, dented, and scratched. "The misfit lockers," he added.

As usual, the hallway was empty, except for one girl entering her combination at the far end off the hall. The turtles opened their lockers. It took a while because the locks kept jamming. Michelangelo couldn't memorize his combination to his so he got to keep the slip of paper with it written on it.

"Ya know, I'm surprised that people here aren't all screaming at the top of their lungs and evacuating the building because we're here. Except for those girls. This might actually be a good idea, Donnie," said Raphael, leaning against a vacant and vandalized locker. He jumped up as it snapped and caved in pathetically.

"You're right," replied Donatello,"I even thought there would be more reaction to us than this. I wonder if we're missing something important?"

A bell rang throughout the hall, causing Donatello and Leonardo to leap four feet into the air. Raphael and Michelangelo snickered at them.

"Students, start heading to your classes. And be nice to our four new students, Donner, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo," announced a voice over the intercom.

"They got my name wrong!" complained Donatello huffily.


	3. Chapter 3: Class Begins

The four turtles quickly finished putting their things in their lockers and started walking down the hall. They each pulled out their schedules to see what they had first and to compare them. Surprisingly, all four brothers had the same first period: Reading and writing. Michelangelo and Leonardo had second period Spanish together. The two brothers didn't see any practical use for a second language in their lives but they'd thought it'd be fun to insult Raphael and Donatello in Spanish just to confuse them. None of the brothers had third or fourth period together, but they all had first lunch. Then, Donatello and Michelangelo went to English while Leonardo and Raphael were attending art for fifth period. Donatello and Michelangelo had acting class together for sixth. Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael had history together and then the brothers all met up again in math.

"Ugh, this makes my brain hurt," moaned Michelangelo in confusion as he and his brothers meandered, looking for reading class.

"Hi, there," said a peppy voice behind the turtles.

The turtles turned quickly in surprise and saw a tall girl walking behind them. She had black, straight hair with golden streaks in it and a smile almost large enough to split her face in two. Large, sunflower yellow eyes reminded Leonardo of a cartoon character, particularly one that happened to be a villain from his favorite show, "Space Heroes". Donatello wondered why the girl wasn't avoiding him and his brothers like the rest of Challenger High School.

"You're wondering why I'm the only person here who dares walk in the same hall as you," said the girl. Donatello, surprised, started quickening his pace to get away from her, afraid she'd read his mind. Or were his thoughts just that obvious?

"Don't worry, Knucklehead. I don't read minds," said the girl teasingly. She reached out and grabbed Donatello's arm and pulled him back to the group. Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo, and Donatello all gasped simultaneously. Sure, a girl who would talk and walk with them was strange, but what could be weirder than a girl who would dare touch one of them? The question was on all the turtles' brains. _Especially Donatello_, Raphael added to his own version of the question they were all thinking.

"My name is Pandora. Pandora Dunning," the girl piped, figuring she'd better explain quick or the brothers would leave her in the dust. "And I saw you months ago. August, to be exact."

Raphael, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Leonardo just stared at her wide-eyed. Somehow, Pandora knew exactly what the orange-masked turtle would say before he even opened his mouth.

"Cool! Hey, do you like pizza?" Michelangelo said, with Pandora saying it at the same time as him, in exactly the same tone, smiling just like how he was. Surprised and startled, Michelangelo ran behind Leonardo, shrieking,"She's a mind reader! Beware, soon she'll know everything about us! Our lair, our names, our catchphrase, even our favorite types of pizza!" as he hid behind his brother. He pointed a shaky, green finger at Pandora from behind Leonardo and murmured,"Just so you know, my favorite pizza is _not_ pepperoni, incase you were thinking that, 'cause it's not."

"Relax, Mikey," said Leonardo, pulling his brother off of him,"She doesn't read minds." Though, Leonardo didn't seem to confidant about his statement. He looked back at Pandora once Michelangelo had calmed down. "Where'd you see us?"

"My brother, my friend and I were watching TV in August when we heard noises coming from outside. We looked out our window and saw four mutant turtles battling a crazy guy in a giant robot suit. At first I thought I had gone crazy, but my friend admitted to seeing it too. We recorded it on our phones and showed my other friends when the school year started. The video spread quickly, and the next thing I know, it's the hot topic here. I don't think many people actually believed it. They probably thought the video had been fake, or the ninja turtles and the robot guy were in costumes. But here you are now, living proof," Pandora explained quickly.

The turtles couldn't think of anything to say to that so Pandora continued talking."You're lucky the school had seen that video. If you just waltzed right into this school expecting kids not to scream without having seen you guys before, things would be a lot worse than they are now. You'd probably get the police called on you." After thinking it through she added,"Or animal control," for good measure. "They pretended to believe the video was fake, but there's no arguing that you're as real as real now."

Donatello blushed._ I should have thought this through more_, he thought. He could only imagine what people would do if that clip of them fighting Baxter Stockman hadn't been a sensation at Challenger High. The video had been a lucky blessing. Donatello and his brothers didn't need to be feared and probably taken somewhere secret to be examined thanks to it. He felt like tucking his head inside his shell and staying like that all day, but Donatello had to get to first period.

"Follow me," said Pandora suddenly,"I know where your reading class is. I have it for first too." The brothers nodded and followed, all secretly wondering how in the world she knew they had reading first.

"Who were your brother and your friend you said saw us fighting too?" Raphael asked Pandora as they walked, taking the chance to speed up and walk next to the girl.

"Oh, my brother's name is Erik, and my friend's really weird name is Kurai," answered Pandora nonchalantly. "My brother is in this period with us."

_ Kurai. _Raphael backed up next to his brothers again slowly, whispering to Leonardo,"She's friends with Kurai."

Leonardo perked up at the mention of his secret crush. Well, secret to Michelangelo and Donatello. Raphael knew full and well about it. Leonardo blushed profusely.

"We still don't know exactly who Kurai is," sighed Donatello, gesturing to himself and Michelangelo. As usual, Raphael and Leonardo ignored them.

"Here we are," said Pandora. She opened the door for the brothers and they walked in.

The entrance wouldn't have caused too much attention, even if they were four mutant turtles wearing ninja masks, but that exact moment when everyone in the room was looking at them as they squished through the door, was the moment Michelangelo had chosen to snap. He screamed,"I can't!" and ran out the door and down the hall. The turtles sighed and started to walk towards the door so they could go catch him and drag him back.

"Hey!" shouted a boy from the corner of the classroom before the turtles left. "I'll help you catch him!"

The turtles stood still and waited for the boy. He looked oddly familiar to them. The boy had short black hair, green eyes, and was really short. He was also considerably chubby. Once the boy made it to the turtles he said, "Hi, I'm Erik." The turtles shrugged off the feeling that they'd seen this person before and ran after Michelangelo. Erik followed, but couldn't run as fast as them.

"Have fun with my brother, you turtles!" Pandora shouted to them as they ran off.

* * *

**Hope you're liking the story! What do you make of Pandora so far?**


	4. Chapter 4: Classes Before Lunch

Hope you like this chapter! It was originally 3,000 words. You're lucky I cut it to less than half of that. :D

* * *

Donatello, Raphael, and Leonardo caught Michelangelo and pulled him back towards class without much trouble. The only difficulty had been trying to haul their brother off of the trophy shelf he'd climbed on top of. Erik chatted with the brothers as they walked back to reading. The turtles didn't really pay attention to him, just nodding or mumbling "cool" every once in a while, letting Erik support the entire conversation. Though, as they turned the corner into the hall with their classroom down it, the boy finally managed to capture the turtles attention quicker than Michelangelo could eat a full slice of pizza- two seconds, to be exact.

"Dudes," Erik had exclaimed,"It's so cool to finally see you guys again! I've been working on my moves, Donatello, and I'm pretty sure I'm worthy of calling myself a ninjitsu master!"

"Wait, what?" asked Donatello. He turned to look at Erik almost fast enough to break his neck. How hard the boy known his name was Donatello? The school had accidentally called him Donner over the intercom earlier. He began to wonder if he really did know Erik from somewhere.

"You don't recognize me?" asked Erik dissapointedly,"I'm Pulverizer!"

All four turtles said "ooh" at the same time, stretching out the word like an overused rubber band. Now they finally knew why they had the feeling that this boy was familiar. He definitely looked different without his lame turtle costume on.

Erik, Donatello, Raphael, and Leonardo re-entered their reading class, Michelangelo bringing up the rear, dragging his feet on the ground as he walked in. When the teacher, Miss Doyle, saw them come back in, she stopped tapping her foot and told Erik to get back in his chair and for the turtles to take the empty seats in the back. After the turtles had sat down, she brought four huge textbooks over to them, dropping one on each of their desks. Miss Doyle tottered back to the front of the room and said,"Turn to page 900, class. Read the next fifteen pages and then write a paper on whether or not you agree with the views expressed in the document." The class groaned and opened their books.

Donatello opened his textbook to page 900. He found the page to be covered in black ink doodles of dragons, monsters, airplanes, and dinosaurs, and some undesirable words Donatello wished he hadn't read, yet he could make out the title: "Why Advanced Reading Skills Are Important". Just by reading the title and seeing the small, packed font, Donatello knew that this was going to be a long, long class.

Raphael had propped open his textbook to the right page, moaning as he saw most of the of the next fifteen pages torn off, but he could still see the title. He wrote his paper on what he thought the document would explain, and turned his page in during the first ten minutes of class. Miss Doyle gave him a strange look when he gave her his paper, and handed it back to Raphael, saying "I doubt advanced reading skills are crucial because they can help you read comic books faster." Taking it back and shuffling to his seat, Raphael sighed heavier than his textbook. He got out a fresh paper and started writing another wild guess essay.

Leonardo noticed Donatello struggling to separate details from doodles in his textbook, and Raphael straining to imagine what to write that would sound like an official document. Michelangelo hadn't even finished his first of the fifteen pages to read, because of his unsurprisingly low reading level. Though, Leonardo was lucky enough to have gotten a unvandalized copy of the textbook and a high reading level, so he finished his paper in a flash. He looked over his essay that spilled from the front side of the paper sheet onto the back, checking for any mistakes. After deciding that it was well written he stood and walked up to Miss Doyle's desk to turn it in. Erik gave Leonardo a thumbs-up as he approached the teacher's beaten-down table.

"What sort of rubbish is this?" asked Miss Doyle loudly as she skimmed over Leonardo's paper. The whole class looked up as Leonardo's essay was critiqued loudly and rudely. She said things like "This sentence doesn't need a comma!" and "That is a misuse of that word," until she finally decided to tear up the sheet into dozens of little pieces and dump them in the trash. Leonardo watched her with hatred as she did so. He hadn't made that many errors!

Miss Doyle gave Leonardo a mockingly evil smile and told him to go start his paper over. Leonardo turned around, putting every bit of restraint he had on himself to not jump up and knock his stupid teacher over, and started walking back to his desk. Most students smiled and laughed silently as Leonardo sat back in his seat and pulled out a new sheet to write on. He was determined to show Miss Doyle that he could do the assignment, determined to prove he was just as worthy of going to Challenger High School as the normal students.

That is just how it went for the rest of the turtles' classes before lunch. In second period Spanish, Leonardo and Michelangelo got five pages extra homework than the other students and their teacher, Mr. Barker, told them he didn't trust them to take a Spanish textbook home like all the normal students had, while Donatello struggled to make his second period keyboarding teacher like him and Raphael's career introduction teacher sat the turtle at least five seats away from every other student.

Donatello wasn't allowed to take part in the activities in his third period science and his brothers all got off on the wrong foot with their third period teachers.

"Gosh," Donatello had said to the person next to him in science,"All of my teachers seem to hate me."

"Yeah, I was in your keyboarding class. I saw how much Miss Morales shouted at you," the boy replied. Donatello startled and straightened up. He hadn't actually expected the person to answer him. "I'm Jethro," the boy introduced himself.

_Jethro_. Donatello mulled over the strange name in his head for a while and then said,"Hi, I'm Donatello." Jethro nodded and told Donatello that he had believed the video of Donatello and his brothers battling a robot was real and that he thought it was the most awesome thing he'd ever seen. After that, the turtle and Jethro got on very well together, telling jokes while pretending to do their work, though the science teacher had yelled at Donatello for 'laughing too loud'.

Michelangelo had science for fourth period and got the same treatment from his teacher as Donatello had. Leonardo had gym for fourth and had exceeded his P.E. teacher's expectations for his performance, giving Leonardo the feeling that he finally had a tutor who liked him, even if he was a ninja turtle. Raphael had English for fourth. It wasn't too bad. His teacher, Mrs. Winter had just ignored him the whole time, seeming pretty neutral to the fact that she had a giant turtle in her classroom. Donatello had art before lunch and pretty much killed the little confidence that his art instructor would like him by accidentally spilling his paint set.

Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael all met up in the hall after their fourth periods on their way to lunch. Michelangelo and Raphael grumbled loudly about their terrible experiences. Leonardo and Donatello did too, yet also shared the good news about meeting a new friend and getting a teacher to like them.

"Students, start making your way to the cafeteria if you have first lunch," announced a soft voice through the intercom.


End file.
